


Oh, for a muse of fire that would ascend

by lightofthetrees



Series: LLA Poetry Prompts 2018 [1]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 02:57:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14227593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightofthetrees/pseuds/lightofthetrees
Summary: Arien begins the Ages-long task of carrying the sun.





	Oh, for a muse of fire that would ascend

**Author's Note:**

> LLA 2018, Prompt #1: Sunrise by avolitorial 
> 
> there are places where the sun  
> never sets all summer, places  
> drowned in light for months  
> at a time. go far enough north,  
> and the days lengthen to seasons:  
> summer one endless day, winter  
> everlasting night. here, though,  
> her path carves out hours, and  
> the day goes down into shadow,  
> more plummet than fall.
> 
> but how brave of her, to rise every  
> morning, knowing she will shatter  
> on the sharp-edged horizon come  
> evening. i want to live like that:  
> too bright to look at, fearless,  
> born anew when day arrives.

The whispers quieted when Arien stepped forward, meeting the eyes of the Elder King as he sat upon his throne. She did not kneel, and she did not bow.  
  
“Arien, once an attendant of Vána,” Manwë said, after a moment. “You will carry the fruit of Laurelin?”  
  
“I will,” Arien replied. The light around her fána, kept dimmed out of respect for the darkening of the trees, flared brighter with her words. This was not a promise she made idly. It was her purpose, part of the great Song that threaded itself through her being.  
  
“Aulë’s folk have completed its vessel. Are you prepared?”  
  
“I am.”  
  
Manwë rose, and Varda too, beside him. “Then it is time.”  
  
The rest of the assembled ainur followed suit, the Valar leaving their thrones and the Maiar departing from their places at the feet of those they served. In a multitude of forms, they proceeded to the once-hallowed place where the trees had rested, though they avoided the hill itself. The Ezellohar was no longer green. Instead, its soil was blackened and had been reduced to the texture of ash by the footsteps of the Corrupted One and his Void-creature. Even Manwë was wary of it, and he flew on his great snowy wings directly to the summit of the hill, Eonwë trailing in his wake.  
  
But Arien climbed, along with Vána, Varda, Aulë and Yavanna - a small and solemn procession of figures illuminated by the golden fruit Yavanna cradled in her arms as one of the Eldar might carry a child.

At the top of the hill, Manwë stood beside a pedestal that held a bowl-shaped structure made of clear glass – the vessel. It was much smaller and much simpler than Arien had expected, and she did everything in her power to look upon it with as much reverence as those around her did. Upon closer inspection, she found that there were intricate swirls etched into the vessel’s surface. They were not uniform in size or shape like the facets of a gem, but irregular and fascinating. There was no beginning or end to any of the swirls, at least not one that Arien could see. Instead, the pieces of the pattern wrapped around each other in a way that both drew the eye and bewildered it.  
  
Arien watched with curiosity as Yavanna and Aulë stepped forward, and she followed when Manwë indicated that she should join them.  
  
“It is yours to bear now,” Yavanna said, holding the fruit of Laurelin out for Arien to take from her. The Maia did so without hesitation, and she was surprised to find that the last remnant of the golden tree felt warm even to her. She could hear Yavanna’s Song in it - a low buzz, rich and sweet, faint but hopeful – but she could also feel her own themes harmonizing with Yavanna’s, and she was so struck with wonder at this that she did not reply in words. There was something else in the notes that gave her pause, too – a name.  
  
“ _Anar_ ,” she whispered, and Yavanna smiled.  
  
Arien glowed ever more fiercely, as if her body could no longer hold the spirit it contained. Her own Song grew louder in her ears – so loud that she did not hear Yavanna’s quiet words of benediction, so loud that she could only reply to Vána and Eonwë’s farewells with a smile and a nod.   
  
Without instruction, she knew what it was she needed to do. She walked past Aulë and set the fruit gently into the vessel, then lifted the vessel from the pedestal and held it aloft.  
  
For all of time, since the world had been sung into being, _ambition_ had been a word spoken like a curse, heard as a sour note. Arien had never been ambitious – she had never fallen prey to the false promises of Melkor and his ilk – but there had always been a restlessness to her Song, an urgency that the unwise mistook for Discord but Vána had always lovingly assured her was Purpose.  
  
Now that restlessness filled her to bursting, breaking through as a single unwavering note, the first in the melody that was to follow.  
  
Where once Arien’s fána had been similar in shape to that of an Elda, it changed as she sang; a pair of wings unfurled behind her, the living flame that composed them blinding in its brightness. The swirls in the glass became illuminated, Arien’s own light blending with that of the fruit inside the vessel, and she tested her new wings, rising a few feet into the air.  
  
She hovered where she was for a moment, and her eyes widened as she realized that even the Valar in attendance had bowed their heads. Whether this was a gesture of respect or a way of shielding the eyes of their corporeal forms against her growing radiance, she could not tell.  
  
Her singing became a triumphant laugh as she rose higher into the air, shedding the rest of her fána as she went, a falling star in reverse.


End file.
